Siberian Crane

Leucogeranus leucogeranus (Pallas, 1773)

115–127 cmLength240 cmWingspan5.9 kgWeight

This large crane is snow-white overall with a red face and legs and feet, revealing black primaries in flight.

Busiest months: December–January · Most records: China, India, Japan

Critically Endangered

How to identify

Field marks

White overall when standing
Bare face brick-red; long legs pink
Bill long, stout, straight and dark brown
Black primaries exposed at the wingtips in flight

Male, female and young

Adult male slightly larger than female; juvenile has a golden-brown head and neck and a brown-and-white body.

Voice

High-pitched, goose-like “toyoya” whistles, very different from the trumpeting of most cranes.

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: December–January · Most records: China, India, Japan

Siberian Crane has been recorded at 105 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 7 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

To protect this bird from disturbance, we don't list exact sites.

Countries and regions with the most records

China India Japan South Korea United Arab Emirates Russia Azerbaijan

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The Siberian crane (Leucogeranus leucogeranus), also known as the Siberian white crane or the snow crane, is a bird of the family Gruidae, the cranes. They are distinctive among the cranes: adults are nearly all snowy white, except for their black primary feathers that are visible in flight, and with two breeding populations in the Arctic tundra of western and eastern Russia. The eastern populations migrate during winter to China, while the western population winters in Iran and (formerly) in Bharatpur, India.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia